Thursday, August 27, 2009

okay peeps, 200K views, 2300 comments.

interview with them here. i think they're also doing an interview with the nytimes. and some fantastically important dude called david to discuss some "things" that i'm not at liberty to pass on but, in short, this could really be something much bigger than it was ever meant to be. it has literally consumed the week. they're all drowning in it a bit.

two comments:

1.) this is my life. i know i've talked in the past about how lucky i feel to have these friends and how fantastically supportive they are and how much freaking fun we have but it's weird to have people around the world seeing how much fun we have, leaving comments like, "OMG i want u 2 b my new best friends!" and to think, "these ARE my best friends. damn. i'm a lucky girl!" and i feel that way every day. we have costume parties and do a lot of dancing and many photo shoots and though the video is a somewhat new thing, we'd planned on doing one over labor day even before all this shit blew up. i'm blessed to love and be loved by such free-spirited, fun, smart people. ted, david, brian and colin are all coming to kenya with me so i'm sure we'll come back with something fun then, too. and labor day. and pretty much any time we're sitting around on the roof, bbqing, spying on the people in the building next door, abusing all you can drink brunches, etc., etc. these are my bests and i don't feel guilty at all that i have thousands of little girls jealous of that fact right now.

2.) i'm happy to report that for every comment deriding them as "fags" or saying that they're "homos" there are about 500 comments knocking that person down, calling them closeted, taking pride in the gayness and just really loving and embracing the video. most everyone viewing is under the age of 21 and they're all these little girls but it's nice to have a confirmation of the fact that the younger generations are guaranteed to be more well-rounded and certainly less homophobic than my generation and the one that came before it. all hail equality, folks. and you know what? that video is gay. it has gay people, lip syncing gaily, to a really catchy poppy little beat. it's gay in the sense that it's shot in one of the top 3 gayest places in the country and also in that it's really happy. so yeah. i love it. i'm glad a whole hell of a lot of other people do too.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

party in the FIP, vegas

so the music video my gays made got tweeted by perez hilton, miley cyrus and then ashley olsen. molls tumblred it. and it has some 2000 comments and had been viewed 140K times last time i checked. absolutely crazy. they're getting interviewed by the advocate (a gay mag) and a screenshot of the video is going to be in the print version of friday's entertainment weekly. they may get featured on the today show on friday.

so we went and got wings on monday and all their phones were blowing up saying that the various media/pr people we know had been forwarding it to producers at various morning shows. tons of random people had tried to add them all on facebook. a few hundred people are now subscribed to david's yourtube channel. silly. and then we were fighting the paparazzi off like crazy over in hell's kitchen and we were like, "paparazzi, please, we just want to eat our wingys!" annoying!

david's had the video bug for a while now. there's a commercial for a scent called "black jasmine" that features both me and the disney princess. there may be shots of me wearing a paper napkin bow on my head because it might have been my birthday and those are thet kinds of things that people do on their birthdays. or something. but anyway, that one isn't coming out because it's not on david's youtube. yet.

and now he's insisting we all make a country lipsync video while we're upstate for labor day. i'm not good in front of a camera so i'm dreading this. and planning on ways to do more filming than mouthing. wish me luck.

still haven't decided where to eat in vegas but mario's assistant, a friend of mine, has graciously offered to set us up if we want to eat at one of his places. he's got a newish steak place out there called carnevino which she said she heard was great though she hasn't been. and i'm a girl who likes meat so maybe we'll end up there.

the gays and gals are taking me out friday. not sure where we're going. it's a surprise which, because i'm a virgo, i kind of hate. but i'm sure it'll be fun. i just hope it's not so much fun that i miss my 6am flight out of LGA on saturday. minor details.

um, these are my gays

mccoy tyner

oh my god, people. i saw mccoy tyner last night at the highline. THE mccoy tyner. the pianist on basically every legendary coltrane album that was ever recorded. i'm still in shock, actually. check out his discography here. my favorite things? live at the village vanguard? a love supreme? JOHN COLTRANE AND JOHNNY HARTMAN!!!! GAH! he's just totally ridiculous and i'm going to remember this concert for the rest of my life. the music is so smooth off his fingers. and easy and i kept closing my eyes to get lost in the music and then would say, "jasmine! open your eyes! you can sit and listen to music with your eyes closed at home! soak this shit in!" he's kind of turtle-esque and i wanted to put him in my pocket to bring him home. his voice is a deep, quiet raspy one and when he makes jokes it's easy to miss the punchline because of it's low tone. and then he played with his trio and gary bartz on the sax (who has played with miles and mingus, again, GAH!). just totally insane. and the bassist gerald cannon was phenomenal. and the highline ballroom? an awesome space. they had some fog machines going as well to feign a smoky atmosphere that mostly worked. i felt transported.

jon batiste band opened. jon is 22, and the whole band seemed to be under the age of 25. many of them quite cute too, fwiw. i liked them but jon sang a few songs. he has a nice voice but the singing had no soul, no depth AND he was flat more than he was on key for the entire first two songs. it was confusing. but the guy is clearly a prodigy and i'd still recommend catching him if you're ever in the same town as him.

headed to vegas this weekend with colin. my birthday is sunday so i'm going to try to find some phat restaurant to eat at that night. the problem is really choosing which one. suggestions?

Sunday, August 23, 2009

McCoy Tyner!

Friday, August 21, 2009

Kind of dreary but colorful: from LIC

mark ronson, robinson cano

went to this event last night for charlotte ronson's line for jcp. mark ronson, my pretend boyfriend, was there in a bright green shirt. i was sat staring at him because he was 2 feet from me and my friend mouthed to our friend alyssa, "that's mark ronson" and alyssa, a brassy (loud) jewish girl is like, "WHO'S MARK RONSON?" and then he turns around and all my hopes for marrying him that night blew away in a big cloud of mist. but the party was not all for naught as the catered food for the party entailed: cotton candy, mac and cheese, cheddar/chive biscuits, fried chicken, mini burgers, fries, chocolate covered cherries, etc., etc. the bartenders humored me when i'd ask for something fruity but not too sweet. that, of course, means i had no idea what kind of alcohol i was ingesting all night. also, lindsay lohan was there for sam, mischa barton showed up, some blond young singer girl i can't remember. all the fashionistas were there. it was fairly well attended.

speaking of boyfriends, alyssa's dad, i found out, works for the freaking yankees. she has pictures of herself on the field with ROBINSON CANO! i almost fainted as she told the story. she's all, "jazzy, you know he doesn't really speak english, right?" and i'm all, "but together we'll speak the language of love!" and she's all eye-rolly and i'm all, "i speak some spanish, we'll figure it out." and she swears that hes not married but is uncertain as to girlfriend status. so ANYWAY, OMG OMG she says she'll have her dad set up a time for us to go so i can meet him. OMG OMG. i literally turn into a screaming 12 year old girl even thinking about it. i will die happy. that is all. O-M-G! (alyssa also said that, having met everyone on the team, the only certifiable asshole is a-rod, something that did not surprise me. she also loves and misses tino martinez, but who doesn't fucking miss tino martinez?!) LL;KASNE;OIFNA;LSE BA;SOENFA;LSIFALKUFBALJSUYGALSEI'. that was my fingers orgasming over the thought of getting to shake robinson cano's hand.

re: the basketball player, a helpful commenter (and peter via email) sent over the names of the only four brians who play for the nba, only two of them are black and neither of them are from long island. so dude was definitely lying about something. emily thinks it might be a dude called brian williams who plays college basketball for tennessee but then who would ask for his autograph? like, who thinks college basketball players are famous? and he totally talked about playing the knicks. so it's another case of meeting a fake athlete.

and speaking of fake athletes! (such tidy segues this morning, i must be in an inspired mood.) i saw the fake baseball player, out last night. we went to our favorite dive bar after the party for a few beers and he was there. late in the evening (2am-ish) the bouncer, a gigantic man named james starts whistling for garry the bartender to come outside. we assume there's a fight happening, but then we see pointing and laughing. standing on the curb, trying to get a cab, possibly, was an old man in nothing but a wife-beater and hiking boots. NOTHING ELSE. so he's got this huge pot belly that's not being covered and his wang is all hanging out and it's funny for a hot second and then you notice the look on his face and he's so sad and old and confused and really very clearly not well. so i look at james, concern in my eyes, he assures me that they've called the cops a few times and that they'll be there soon to pick him up. BUT, guess what's happening while we wait for the police to pick up this sad crazy man?...the fake baseball player is hooting and howling and then flagging cab after cab, letting them pull over for him and them pointing them in the direction of the pantsless man, telling them he needs a ride and the man kind of stares at the cabs and some of them pull over just to mess with him and you KNOW this dude probably has no idea where he is, where he's going and maybe even his own name because what kind of state do you have to be in to forget to put on pants or underwear? a BAD state, people. TERRIBLE. and jj has nothing better to do than make a huge scene around this poor dude and laugh at him. so if it weren't already established, jj newman is a huge asshole who needs to grow the fuck up. it all made me feel sick to my stomach.

but the myriad of cocktails may have been a contributing factor.

i have the weekend off again. hallelujah!! and am thinking about heading to the beach. also thinking that staying here, sleeping in, doing laundry and going to a boozy brunch or two sounds awfully nice as well. have a super great jazz concert sunday night that i'm very excited about. i'll be sure to report back.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

rodarte, sufjan, real ballers

re: how fucking sad i'm finding infinite jest...i guess i'm reading it (and understanding it) the way DFW would have wanted (the bit i'm talking about is around minute 20, but if you have the time and like DFW this whole interview is good). which consoles me slightly as i continue to tread through this downer of a novel.

they limited tickets to one pair per person for sufjan tickets. which means i couldn't get another pair to sell for mucho money. so i'm debating selling my other ticket. it's the bowery so it's not like i have to sit next to a stranger but if i sell it, i'm going to the concert alone which isn't something i much enjoy. but none of my friends are as sufjan obsessed as i am either so they'd go and not really have any idea what was going on.

jon cohn: definitely one of the best guests i've ever seen on the colbert report.

so emily, a couple weeks ago, met some professional basketball player. and unlike the fake baseball player, this guy seems to actually play a professional sport. someone asked for his autograph while they were out. (there's a small chance he paid the dude to do that, which would actually be really fucking hilarious, but i digress.) i get a text from her last night, "brian, that nba guy won't leave me alone. i've told him i'm married like a million times. he wants me to bring out single friends on friday. what do you think?" my initial response was, "bring marla instead. he probably wants to get laid and at least she's a sure thing." (marla was her maid of honor, mostly because emily said she didn't want to deal with the argument that would ensue if marla wasn't made MOH. but again, i digress. also, marla sleeps with anything with a pulse and has a preference for married/engaged/otherwise taken men. it's awful.) emily responds, "no, he didn't act that way - i think he just wants company before he has to head to work, he never tried anything. but all men want 1 thing so who knows. i'll be pissed if he doesn't buy us drinks." "well, tell him you're unemployed and you can't afford to go out. if he really wants to hang he'll offer to pay for it all. btw, i think i just sent feminism back a decade with this text."

so it seems we're going out with him on friday. his mom lives in long island, which is where i assume he's from (he also has a 516 area code). he doesn't play for new york because he offered her tickets for the knicks whenever his team plays them. he's obviously a big black guy and he's called brian. any sports fanatics or bored people care to figure out who this guy is? emily didn't even ask what team he played for because she wouldn't have known it even if he'd said it.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

infinite summer, busy week

last week in my sick haze i picked up two untouched new yorkers. i read the talk of the town sections in each (i try to make sure not to miss anything by ben mcgrath, and more often than not he has something nestled in those front pages) and could not, for the life of me, get through a single article. i'm sure it's because i was sick and couldn't focus and certainly couldn't then deal with malcom gladwell, someone who almost always irritates me when i read him even though i generally like his work. and in tossing the latest new yorker i didn't realize i was trashing a double week issue so i probably should have kept it around because now i'm many pages ahead in infinite jest. basically, i actually have time for it.

also, i should have been marking more pages in IJ because i'll see a reference to something and then won't remember where i first read the reference, then i'll try to find it on the internet and then get bombarded by spoilers. even just trying to graze a website for the reference to the word in the fogged window led me to three different huge plot points that i'm not supposed to know about. basically, i'll be doing no more googling.

and one last bit re: IJ, i have decided already that i need to read this again. after torturing myself through the first 100 pages, analyzing everything, making sure i 100% understood every passage...i let go. i breeze through now (which is precisely why i'm ahead of schedule). i read it on the train, amidst a myriad of distractions and train conductor announcements. i'm not really absorbing a lot of the language and its beauty. i'm bypassing some of this to be practical, to progress, so that i may actually finish. but i've found myself hitting sentences like this and barely stopping to soak and luxuriate in them: "One of the really American things about Hal, probably, is the way he despises what it is he's really lonely for: this hideous internal self, incontinent of sentiment and need, that pules and writhes just under the hip empty mask, anhedonia*"

*This had been one of Hal's deepest and most pregnant abstractions, one he'd come up with while getting secretly high in the Pump Room. That we're all lonely for something we don't know we're lonely for. How else to explain the curious feeling that he goes around feeling like he misses somebody he's never even met? Without the universalizing abstraction, the feeling would make no sense.

DFW's genius is in his ability to write about feelings. To put into words most of the things even writers say aren't possibly to put into words. his sections about addiction and depression are so foreign but i feel them so deeply. on a physical level, i have never been depressed or addicted or gone through withdrawl but now i feel like i know, somewhat, the horrors. the depth with which he captures raw emotion is unlike anything i've ever read. it's draining and not at all satisfying. it's dark. i'm figuratively drowning in this book.

OOOOHHHH! this weeks new yorker! Hendrik Hertzberg on California; Ben McGrath on Michael Bloomberg; David Sedaris on singing; Tad Friend on the electric car; Sasha Frere-Jones on Leonard Cohen; David Denby on "Inglourious Basterds"; fiction by Dave Eggers; and more.

things overheard on the street this weekend:

dude 1: "BRAAAAD!!!!!"

dude 2: stop yelling, i told you it's not him!

dude 1: "BRAD!"

person who i hope was an actor doing a monologue over the phone but who i'm afraid was actually just a total loser because he said a lot of really outlandish things such as, "the muslims and the koreans. you gotta watch out for them. the muslims, they're blowing themselves up so they've got no credit, you know?"

this is a busy week, socially. our committee voted to endorse my rock star dude. a party with mark ronson (i don't think i ever wrote about my weekend in LA where he performed and i sat and just stared at him, mesmerized by his cuteness, also i highly recommend the mondrian as a hotel out there, totally blissful. get the huevos rancheros at the dos caminos there), a birthday dinner, a birthday picnic. sigh.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

infinite summer, cancer, endorsing

still reading infinite jest. i have mixed feelings about this book at this point (page 500). wallace has grabbed me in and now i'm invested and even in love with some characters so i keep reading. but the last hundred pages have been violent and gritty (think a man impaled and cats being burned alive) and also just heartbreaking (a whole scene of a boy watching his mother die on christmas morning that nearly brought me to tears). also, there are other injuries and trouble. and some of these end notes are really freaking long. but you HAVE to read them. so much good, funny stuff happens in the end notes. sigh. this is a labor of love, no doubt about it. i'm finding myself less and less interested in the "mystery" portion of the storyline and more and more praying like mad that my favorite characters, ones i really freaking LOVE, i'm just hoping things end up okay for them. mostly because i've lost most my trust that DFW believes in happy endings. or in happiness at all. ever. (all of which makes his suicide even sadder and more tragic, if that's even possible.)

a good friend (one of the gays) was diagnosed with testicular cancer. we did a lot of partying in honor of the right ball that he knew he was losing. he was a super sperm donor and the ball removal was successful. we're hoping for only radiation and not chemo so cross some fingers his way. testicular cancer is, luckily, a super treatable cancer and nobody was ever worried about him dying so this hasn't been a morbid last couple weeks. it's been more about finding strength and laughter among us. what doesn't kill us, etc.

i have a LOT of ironing to do. why haven't i invested more in wrinkle-free clothing?

i'm part of an organization that endorses city-wide races so have been doing all these interviews with folks running for city council seats. i'm not tough enough for this work. most of the candidates have their hearts in the right place and it's just heartbreaking to see them all and know that some of them don't stand a chance. i want them all to win. i want a 5th grade democracy. that's not to say that some of them aren't shallow and full of platitudes or just plain wacko. and i also have my favorites which i'll write about just before election day in case anyone here votes in nyc and gives a shit. i met a GREAT great guy tonight running for a seat in brooklyn. a dude who just gets it and gets the system. he totally rocked my world, politically speaking, and as much as one's world can be rocked by someone running for city council which isn't much but counts for something. the guy up in my district is pretty good too. lots of energy. now we just need christine quinn to stop acting like a mob boss and start acting like a reformer. she's really putting a cramp in everyones style. and kind of just being sucky.

work is slowing down so i may get ownership of my weekends back. hallelujah!

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

eleven madison park, yankees, softball, blah diddy blah

am finally feeling better.

last week was a mess. there's nothing to make you grateful for your health than being sick. post-doctor friday morning i called out for the rest of the weekend and booked a ticket to chicago for a little r&r since kate and i never do anything but lay around the house with the dogs watching really bad reality television or those forensics shows about detectives or psychics figuring out how some woman died (hint: it's always the husband).

but first: yankees game vs. boston. being still fairly sick, i shouldn't have gone at all but, come on. like i'm going to pass up a free ticket to that shiz. i didn't drink and only ate half my hot dog. we stayed to the bottom of the 13th and i listened to the last two innings on the radio. a-rod, coming to the rescue in a clutch. imagine that! also, why hasn't anyone out there hooked me up with robinson cano yet? i can't marry that man until we have some proper time together so the sooner this all happens, the better.

i stopped over to chicago for a grand 24 hours to see kate. it actually was pretty awful. which is so sad because chicago is my safe place. and this weekend i was just so out of sorts because i wasn't feeling well and also because it was ALL about kate being pregnant. and i get that that's a huge thing and they're both a bit terrified but it was almost as if this is something that people haven't been doing for centuries. the way she talked about being pregnant sounded like she is the only person in the world who is carrying a child. at a certain point i just started tuning it all out. and it really just felt like the end of me and kate as i know it. my fears that she can't be a "normal" friend and that it'll be all about children from here on out was pretty substantiated. i dunno. it's just kinda sad. it's REALLY fucking sad, actually.

in the comments of my last post i got this: "just saw your post about christian scherer. leaving a comment here because i figured you're more likely to see it. HE IS STILL AT IT. how do i get in touch with you? you will die when you hear this!"

though i haven't heard from her, she's more than welcome to drop a line. sympathetic ear, etc. but christian scherer is a one trick pony. dude has NOTHING else going for him besides the fact that it's easy for him to lie and cheat on women. i wonder if he's still pretending to get calls from judges and lying about going to depositions. those are pretty big lies for someone who isn't a licensed attorney and hasn't even passed the bar.

my beloved eleven madison park, now a 4 star restaurant. that, my friends, is bruni going out with a bang. congrats to danny meyer and the gang. i couldn't be happier for a restaurant. although, i'm sure that in the end this does make it infinitely more difficult to think of renting the place out someday for my wedding.

Friday, August 07, 2009

Yankees vs. Red Sox

Thursday, August 06, 2009

sicky, tired, more douchebags, babies, wha?

every evening at the tunnel that connects the 4/5/6 trains at grand central to the 7 train there stands a small man, severely hunched over, playing (or doing something that sounds like playing) a violin. i think hes quite possibly one of the saddest kinds of people i see performing on the streets. every day he screeches away, somewhat awful sounds coming from his instrument. i always wonder where these people live. whether they have families. one of those questions was answered for me the other day. at 6:45 as i was walking to the subway from my apartment, i see him headed to the train, just in front of me. so the sad violin man apparently is my neighbor.

overheard conversation of two maintenance people at work: "how you doin?" "i didn't kill my wife today, so, so far so good!"

sitting on the train the other day i heard 5 distinct languages around me. for a brief second i felt like i was in a different country. it was kind of awesome.

i swear people, i could not make this shit up, even if i tried. no matter how creative i wanted or tried to be, i would never have been able to come up with stories this good. erika and i are at a bar. erika is somewhat of a rabbit's foot when it comes to nights out. whenever we play, something interesting happens and we always meet someone. last time was the juice king and and OMG josh hartnett. so we go to happy hour at lure, load up on $1 oysters then head to merc bar where i became buddies with a bartender a few months back. we're chatting with said bartender and some guy kind of butts in. he's fairly pretty but is wearing a navy coat and a pocket square. we can tell right off that he's arrogant as shit. he introduces us to pettier black gay dude and they seem such an unlikely couple except for the fact that the gay dude can't stop gushing about the pocket square's "armani suit, isn't it beautiful?" and i start to think that the straight dude is only hanging around with this twink so that he'll have someone to give him compliments on demand. gay dude is having all his drinks bought for him so they've got some symbiotic thing going on. "so ladies, i'm meeting a date here. when she shows up, you have to pretend like you've never met me. my ex-fiancee never liked me talking to other women." i couldn't help myself and blurted, "but you came over and talked to us! we didn't want anything to do with you in the first place!" he laughed a sort of country-club laugh, talked about how his father played in some rock band that he "couldn't" name because it was too famous. meet tabber benedict. YES people. these guys exist and they all live in new york and they're all ridiculous. THIS IS MY LIFE. ugh.

re: lack of posting...work has been busy as hell. and when i'm not working, i'm playing and i've been left with very little time for ME. no time for writing. so today is a sick day. i feel like utter shit. coughing up a lung, not sleeping and haven't eaten more than a coffee and a couple cups of soup since sunday. so for the first time in ages i actually called in sick. i slept all day. feeling kind of out of sorts and i have a doctors appt tomorrow so hopefully i'll get some decent cough syrup, some antibiotics and be on the way to recovery. it's nice to actually have time to sleep. i wonder if i'm not suffering some form of exhaustion. seriously. i'm over-extended. i'm being pulled in 5 different directions at any given time. besides the core group of the gays, none of my friends are friends with each other.

i was walking with a co-worker and we hear "what's up ladies!" and turn around to see two guys who couldn't have been more than 14 years old. one had his pants around his knees as boys are wont to do these days. my friend says, "pull up your pants!" and he says, "yes ma'am." and does, indeed, pull his pants up. i felt very matronly.

so kate, the best friend of all best friends...started trying to have a baby a couple weeks ago and bitch is already pregnant! it's still super early so you never know and some 20 percent of first pregnancies end in miscarriage so she's not telling anyone but me and family for now but DAMN. also, the really selfish part of me feels like life is over as i know it. once they have kids it's ALL about the children, all the time. that being said, when i go to chicago we do nothing but hang at the house anyhow so that won't change. and she mostly talks about school so now she'll talk about school and baby, which i can deal with. she's already talking about how i'll schedule a trip home to be there for the delivery which, i dont know, is scary. and bloody. and wouldn't i just be in the way? so, hello! unchartered territory in my friendship! i have a grand total of 3 friends that are even married and none of the rest of them are trying. new york is the kind of place where people don't get married and even those that do, seem to wait forever to have kids. unless they're jewish. then it's all, "i need to find a husband and have 3 kids before i turn 27." i cannot relate.

starting to feel woozy again so i guess i'll take yet ANOTHER nap. the picture up top is from an excellent pool party in fire island (the pines) with the gays last weekend. i'm going to try to return there in my head through this cough-syrup haze...i like that dude on the left who's all, "ick, who ARE these people?" heh.